


let me clear my throat

by MeansToOffend (goodmorning)



Series: Pick Me Up (Again) [3]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017-2018 NHL Season, Buffalo Sabres, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 21:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend
Summary: '“‘Jack Eichel’? Seriously?”'





	let me clear my throat

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [America](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14006676) by [MeansToOffend (goodmorning)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/MeansToOffend). 



> This one, and hopefully this one alone, won't make any sense without reading the other one.

It’s not like he doesn’t have his own ideas about what to do with his stupid crush, it’s just - well, he wants to reassure himself that they’re not incredibly bad or potentially life-ruining ideas. The problem is, everyone he feels comfortable talking to about it is completely useless with both advice and interpersonal relationships, their own and other people’s. So it takes him a while - an agonizing, soul-crushing few weeks - before he finally realizes he can talk to Eichs. Really, he doesn’t know why he didn’t think of Eichs sooner.

(Okay, actually he only thinks of Eichs because he overhears him having a mushy relationship conversation on his phone in the bathroom hallway when they’re doing the ‘get dinner and catch up before the game’ thing. Still, he gets there eventually; that’s the important thing.)

“‘Jack Eichel’? Seriously?”

“It’s pretty fucking weird, dude.”

“The greatest skating? Your ego-”

“Wait, you have a _boyfriend_?”

“He’s not my-!”

“Is there an actual story? Or are you just going to sigh at me the whole time?”

He snickers; Eichs turns kind of red and talks over him. It’s the funniest fucking thing he’s seen in a long time, ever since - well, ever since the guy he wants to date made faces at geese for a solid fifteen minutes, then panicked and ran away when one came looking for bread. He tries to focus on the story, but-

“ _Little_ problem? Is something wrong with your-?”

“With Sam’s dick, then.”

“How would you know?”

“Then why are you telling me about your problems?”

“What the fuck made you think that?”

“Oh, rub it in, why don’t you?”

“ _Sure_ it does.”

He doesn’t actually know about it, if he’s being completely honest. Maybe it really is both a lot of work and relevant to the story. _Maybe._ He tries to keep listening, but Eichs mentions how disgustingly cute he and Sam are together and he has to fake-gag.

“Technically something _carnal_ -”

“You set it up!”

“So you said it out loud-?”

He makes a face at Eichs, just to annoy him. 

“ _Favors_ ,” he says, as insinuatingly as he can.

“Eww, how could you defile the sanctity of the room like that?”

“What? If you mean what I think, it definitely doesn’t count.”

“But we both swallowed!” Eichs looks at him disgustedly and returns to the story.

“Who is it then?” he asks, because he knows how annoying Eichs will find it.

“Wait, what kind of cheese would I be?”

Eichs hits him with an absolutely devastating line, and he really doesn’t have a comeback.

“When did you get patient?”

“No you’re not.”

“Okay, fair, I guess you are.”

He really tries to stay patiently quiet after that, to prove Eichs wrong, but he just can’t.

“What the fuck were all the promises good for then?”

“Why are you telling me this if you don’t want to think about it?”

“No, I asked for advice, not storytime.”

“I thought you were the patient one?” he asks, innocently, and laughs internally at Eichs’ face.

“Oh my god, they do!”

“Wow, your goalie sucks.”

“Then how come he didn’t notice?”

“ _Sure_ he did, Eichs.”

He gets a text then, from the guy he’s trying to get Eichs’ advice about. It’s a video of someone else’s puppy. At the end, the camera swings around to catch (most of) the adorable enthusiastic expression on the guy’s face, and his heart pangs a little more because he’s disgustingly, sickeningly in love. He doesn’t say that, though. Instead, he texts ‘Cute :))’ and pretends, even to himself, that he 100% meant the puppy.

He looks up. Eichs looks annoyed.

“Dude, are you my fucking algebra teacher?”

“Because he always said the same shit, and he was super boring.”

“Uhhhhhhh…”

“No?”

“Ugh, fine, Eichs, sorry. Keep going.”

He wants to stop interrupting, so he’ll actually look sorry, but then Eichs says he only sleeps with his boyfriend after wins, and what the fuck is that?

“Is that a thing you do?”

“Why?”

“Do you still-?”

Eichs keeps rambling about how feeling cockblocked by his own boyfriend sucked, which he gets, but this story has been so long already and can’t Eichs just hurry it up a little?

“What secret?” he asks, hoping to skip to the end, but Eichs refuses.

Finally, though, the story kind of feels like it’s almost over. 

“All your ideas-”

“Oh my god, I’m totally going to use that line.”

“What the fuck?”

There’s a bit that’s unbearably cute, mostly because he wants it so badly, and then Eichs finally stops and imparts the moral of his story, the asshole. 

“Well I was _trying_ to talk to him, but you got offended by my phone, so-”

“But it was _so long_ for _no reason_!”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Hey, Eichs? Thanks.”

“I SAID THANKS.”

It’s not much later that the team are back home, and he and the guy he desperately wishes was his boyfriend are alone, wandering the streets of the city that’s starting to feel more like home than the one that raised him. They’re looking for a Christmas present for his not-boyfriend’s mom even though it’s very last-minute and also starting to snow, gently and beautifully. The streetlights are already coming on; that’s where the guy who stars in a guilt-inspiring number of his sex dreams stops, looking up at the sky, squinting past the beam to try and catch one on his tongue, a few stray flakes already melting in his hair.

It’s so endearing that he can’t stop himself from striding over and asking, far too earnestly, “Would you want to get coffee sometime? Like, as a date?” 

His maybe-almost-boyfriend looks at him, for a moment, and he can almost pretend the goosebumps on the back of his neck are entirely due to a loose scarf and a cold breeze, but it’s obvious they’re not when his no-longer-hopeless crush smiles at him, bright and happy as he’d been to see the snow, and says, “I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- This one is weird because it's mostly not actually about the Sabres? Ah well.  
> \- This is of course the other half to "America." I was curious to see how well I could tell a love story around the structure of the interjections and in even fewer words.  
> \- The title is the title of the Sabres' goal song.  
> \- If you celebrate this month, have a good holiday! :)


End file.
